The present invention relates to an elevator display device that displays the time it takes for an elevator to arrive.
Target floor registration units that suggest a departure elevator car for a given target floor (destination floor) that a user should ride upon have been installed near elevator landings for an increasing number of elevators in recent years. Such systems are often referred to as “destination entry” systems. In such cases, the elevator system is configured in such a manner that a call for an elevator car is registered automatically, and the car travels to the target floor without requiring any actuation once the user gets in the elevator car suggested by the registration unit. For example, Japanese Kokai Patent Application No. 2001-348170 describes how a user may be led to the assigned elevator car without any confusion.
Japanese Kokai Patent Application No. 2001-348170 describes that it is feasible for target floor registration units to be installed in a building in the manner shown in FIG. 8A, which is a plan view of a floor inside a building, wherein elevator cars A-F are provided about the elevator hall. Target floor registration units 10 are installed between cars B and C and between cars E and F at the elevator hall. Furthermore, they are positioned on respective guiding lines 20a and 20b drawn on the floor in order to lead a user who is present at a prescribed distance to the elevator hall.
As shown in FIGS. 8B and 8C, each target floor registration unit 10 has a registration operation part 11 for registering a target floor using numeric keys and a display part 12 for displaying elevator information. For example, when a user registers (enters) “25” for the 25th floor as the target floor using the numeric keys as shown in FIG. 8B, the 25th floor is displayed as “25F” on the display 12, as shown in FIG. 8C. In addition, the display 12 also tells the user which car (e.g., “A”) to which he/she should proceed as well as the direction (e.g., “to the left”) in which he/she should walk to get to the identified car.
If the user registered a target floor at a registration unit 10 that is located at some distance from the assigned elevator car, it is plausible that the user may feel uneasy or pressured, thinking, “The elevator car may have already arrived and departed,” while he/she is moving to the front of the elevator car (e.g., car A) that was displayed on the display 12. If the assigned elevator car has, in fact, already departed before the user gets to the car, the user must reregister the target floor using another target floor registration unit 10. Therefore, it would be preferable to eliminate such feelings of uneasiness for a user who uses a registration unit 10 that is located far from the elevator car identified by the registration unit.
In light of the foregoing, the present invention aims to resolve one or more of the aforementioned issues that afflict conventional elevators.